Biking to Dragør, a charming village on the eastern tip of Amager

Ten days ago, I finally had a day off work, and since I don’t have many days off in June, I’ve decided to spend those few days that I have the best way possible. It’s summer, the weather is beautiful and I have no exams to revise for, so going on adventures seems like the perfect way to spend my free days.

On June 6th, I invited my friend Nikolai along for a biking trip to Dragør, a village that I’ve been wanting to visit ever since moving to Copenhagen. It’s located only 12 km from the center of Copenhagen on the bridge-connected island of Amager, surrounded by fields and open ocean. I wanted to go to a place that felt like Jutland, where I come from, so Dragør seemed like the perfect choice.

Along the coast road on Amager

We met up right before noon at the City Hall in Copenhagen, and then set off on our adventure. We biked along the coast road on Amager, past Amager Strandpark (which I can’t wait to come back to! How have I not been there yet!?), the late 19th century Kastrup Fort, the airport and endless fields. At the airport, we stopped at a spot where the planes fly right above when landing, but unfortunately, we didn’t see any planes, so we decided to come back there on the way home.

The first view of Dragør

On we rode, and soon after, we could see Dragør. We stopped to take some photos by the water with a view of Dragørs skyline on one side and the Øresund Bridge on the other side. We were almost at the easternmost point in on Amager, so close to Sweden that we could almost touch it.

The charm of Dragør

When we got into the center of Dragør, we parked our bikes and started walking through the cobbled streets.

In many ways, Dragør reminded me of Ribe, the oldest town in Denmark, with its cobbled streets and colourful houses decorated with flowers and 20th century bikes.

Dragør is an old village with very narrow streets and low houses from the 18th and 19th century, and is one of the best preserved villages in Denmark. There are 81 protected buildings in the old part of the village, which is the largest concentration of protected buildings in any Danish village.

Archaeological excavations

Nikolai had read about some archaeological excavations happening in Dragør, so naturally, we had to find those. He wrote to some people that he knows from Kroppedal Museum, who told us where to go, and soon after, we found the first small excavation of a 16th century house in the center of the village. Here, they have found foundations from at least two houses on top of each other, numerous potsherds and bone fragments.

Soon after, we found another excavation, where they were digging up parts of a medieval graveyard!!! Because Nikolai knows them, they let us in the cellar, where they were digging, and we saw a full skeleton that was just about to be excavated! That was pretty cool!

Lunch by the harbour

After studying the interesting excavations, we went down to the harbour, where we ate our lunch among 20+ ducks!

Dragør Fort

The last sight on our list for the day was Dragør Fort, an early 20th century fort, which was built as a defense building to protect Copenhagen from hostile bombings. Today, the fort is privately owned and is used as a restaurant, but parts of it are free to visit.

The view from the fort was probably my favourite thing about it. We could see all of colourful Dragør as well as the Øresund Bridge, this time even closer than before.

The planes above us

After exploring the fort, it was time to head back to Copenhagen. We drove along the same road in order to try to catch the planes at that special spot near the airport. This time, we got lucky! We stopped to watch as four flights flew right above us. It was a crazy experience to look directly up and see nothing but the bottom of a plane!

About an hour later, we were back in the center of Copenhagen. We had had a great day exploring Dragør and biking 30 km through Amager. I need to take advantage of living in Copenhagen some more, that’s for sure. There are a lot of beautiful places to see around here, including places in Southern Sweden, which I’ve recently started my explorations of. You can read about my trip to Lund here, and stay tuned for my post on Malmö!